Gearing up for Retribution has become quite the hassle these days, on top of Warriors fighting loot with us, we have those damn Death Knights rolling on them as well.

Besides that, various plate gear have different stats such as Haste, Armor Penetration and of course, Critical Rating. Unfortunately some of these stats don’t benefit us that much and most Retribution paladins I encountered have no idea about it. Among the many plate gear in the game it is best to select those that benefit you the most and maximize your DPS. Thus you need to know which stat is more valuable and which gear provides better DPS. Oh and it saves ur DKP or EPGP.

Let’s start with the basics.
On top of dealing great damage, a melee DPS firstly MUST NOT MISS and reduce the chance the raid boss dodges his attacks. Therefore you need 8% HIT (263 Hit Rating) and 26 EXPERTISE (214 Expertise Rating).

DO NOT MISS = 263 HIT RATING
REDUCE DODGES = 214 EXPERTISE RATING

Remember that! This is the foremost gear requirement you should reach. Well actually just make sure you get 8% HIT (263 HIT RATING), Expertise can be slowly accumulated as you gear up.

Now that I made myself clear about Hit Rating and Expertise. Let’s look at other Retribution stats:

STRENGTH (STR)
Once you reach the HITCAP (8% Hit), the next stat to stock up on is Strength. Strength is the primary stat that increases our damage. 1 Strength (STR) = 2 Attack Power (AP) baseline. Talented with Divine Strength, 1 STR converts into 2.3 AP. The conversion further increases with Blessing of Kings. So 1 STR can actually give you about 2.6 AP.

Attack Power (AP)
After reading the above about Strength, some might think since STR converts into AP? Might as well stock up on AP straightaway, right?
Wrong. Firstly you will hardly find any plate gear with AP on them, AP is mostly found in leather or mail. But they are also included in cloaks and rings. The point is this, AP does not scale as well as STR for paladins, let’s do a little math.

Compare Cloak of Bloodied Waters to Ice Striker’s Cloak. Most would just conclude Ice Striker’s Cloak would be the better choice since it’s epic, but take a closer look.

Cloak of Bloodied Waters gives 60STR. Converting to AP where 1 STR equals to 2.3AP, 60STR gives 138AP, 38 more AP compared to Ice Striker’s Cloak. With talent Strength can grant way more AP from gear, so next time do a little math when comparing items.

CRITICAL RATING (CRIT) VS AGILITY (AGI)
I combine these two stats because both Agility and Critical Rating increases Critical Chance. But Critical Rating is more valuable as it increases Critical Chance more than Agility for us.

45.9 CRITICAL RATING = 1% MELEE CRITICAL CHANCE
52 AGILITY = 1% MELEE CRITICAL CHANCE

As you can see Critical Rating is a better stat for obtaining higher critical chance.

HASTE & ARMOR PENETRATION (ArP)
These two are combined because, well, they are the least benefit to Retribution paladins. Haste gives you more melee damage and Seal damage as you make more swings at the boss, but that’s about it. Armor Penetration (ArP) on the other only increases melee damage, Crusader Strike and Divine Storm damage, but NOT damage done by Seals and Judgements. Thus the benefit from Haste and Armor Penetration loses out to pure Strength.

I think I wrote a rather long post and you might not digest it well, So I’ll summarise it.

Gearing Up the RET Way
1. Get Hit-Capped which is 8% HIT (263 Hit Rating)
2. Stock up on STRENGTH (STR) and CRIT RATING
3. Slowly obtain 26 EXPERTISE (214 Expertise Rating) as you upgrade gear
4. Haste & Armor Penetration are lowest priorities.
5. Gemming go for STRENGTH primarily and followed by CRIT RATING.

Hope this article help you guys make better gear selection.

Patch 3.2 is around the corner, and here we look at the changes to the Protection in the upcoming patch. There’s been some fixes and changes to block in general. General tanking stats have been changed as well.

Agility: The amount of agility required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This change required recalibrating the amount of dodge a player has with 0 agility by a slight amount as well, so all players will see their dodge percentage vary a small amount.

Block Value: The amount of bonus block value on all items has been doubled. This does not affect the base block value on shields or block value derived from strength.

On-Use Block Value Items: All items and set bonuses that trigger temporary increases to block value have been modified. Instead of increasing their block value amount by 100% like other items, they have all had their effect durations doubled. This applies to Glyph of Deflection, Gnomeregan Autoblocker, Coren’s Lucky Coin, Lavanthor’s Talisman, Libram of Obstruction, Tome of the Lightbringer, Libram of the Sacred Shield, the tier-8 paladin Shield of Righteousness bonus, the tier-5 paladin Holy Shield bonus, and the tier-5 warrior Shield Block bonus.

Dodge Rating: The amount of dodge rating required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply.

Dodge Rating: The amount of dodge rating required per percentage of dodge has been increased by 15%. This is before diminishing returns. Combined with other changes, this makes dodge rating and parry rating equally potent before diminishing returns apply.

Blessing of Sanctuary: This blessing now also increases stamina by 10%. This effect is not cumulative with Blessing of Kings.

Righteous Fury: No longer has a duration, remaining until cancelled or death. Also cancelled when a Paladin activates a different talent specialization.

Shield of Righteousness: Now deals 100% of shield block value as damage instead of 130%. In addition, the benefit from additional block value this ability gains is now subject to diminishing returns. Diminishing returns occur once block value exceeds 30 times the player’s level and caps the maximum damage benefit from shield block value at 34.5 times the player’s level.

Ardent Defender: Redesigned. Any damage that takes the paladin below 35% health is reduced. This reduction applies only to the portion that pushes the paladin below 35% health (example: a paladin at 50% health takes a 40% hit; the first 15% hits as normal while the next 25% is reduced). In addition, once every 2 minutes an attack that would have killed the paladin will fail to kill, and instead heal the paladin for up to 10/20/30% of maximum health depending on the paladin’s defense rating (example: a paladin with defense equal to only 5 times his or her level will receive no healing from the talent, while a paladin who is immune to critical strikes from boss creatures through defense will receive the maximum amount).

Guarded by the Light: This talent will no longer cause Divine Plea’s duration to be refreshed by using Judgement of Wisdom, Judgement of Justice, or Judgement of Light.

The good news is that Block Value on all items have been doubled, but sadly few tank gear in the game nowadays have block rating or block value. Most tank gear now only have mainly Defense, Dodge, Parry stats, gear with Block Rating and Block Value are few.

Also, Dodge and Parry now has a higher cost per percentage. You now need 15% more Agility, or Dodge Rating per 1 percent of Dodge. So expect your stats to drop a little.

Only way to fix this is to gear up more I guess. Good thing there’s the new 5 man instance and Emblems of Conquests dropping all around.